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From Corel:
Create your best photos ever with new Corel PaintShop Pro X7. With smarter editing features, 30% faster brushes, new creative tools and easier color selection, this complete photo-editing software helps you turn your snapshots into beautiful, gallery-worthy images. A great fit for all skill levels, PaintShop Pro X7 brings out the best in your photos that matter. A complete toolset for all skill levels - Take your photo editing to the next level with pro-quality tools, including RAW editing, HDR, layers and more. Whether you're a photography newbie looking to pick up the basics or an experienced photographer who wants to learn new techniques, the library of video tutorials offers the help you need to develop your skills.

Unforgettable images--fast - Get the perfect photo in less time with popular brushes that are 30% faster. Achieve amazing results with a complete redesign of our most popular tools and seamlessly remove people or objects from photos with new Magic Fill. Amazing photos made easy - Turn your favorite snapshots into stunning images you'll be proud to share with easy-to-use photo-editing software that let you manage, adjust and edit your photos. Dramatically transform photos using versatile creative design tools, including brushes, textures, layers, vector tools and more.

Paintshop Pro is a excellent program with many useful tools for image editing. In many ways it is as good or better than Photoshop. Aftershot Pro 2 is also good, the RAW editor has some great tools.

Cons

Corel. It is about the worst software company I've ever dealt with. Disgusting corporate culture:

1. I called customer service and was treated rudely.2. I've asked to be removed from their constant (sometimes twice a day) advertising but cannot seem to get unsubscribed, their online unsubscribe feature doesn't work.3. Tech support is nonexistent without paying fees after 30 days. 4. They don't respond to email questions.5. I was on hold yesterday for 20 minutes, finally was offered to leave a message, I did, but no one returned the call.6. They seem to have contempt for their customers.

Summary

Paintshop Pro X7 and Aftershot Pro 2 are excellent products. Dealing with the company that makes them is a negative experience.

Buy this program at your own risk! I have been using PaintShop Pro for several years. I also use AfterShot Pro. I have always been happy with these programs, but...

I now have a problem with the functionality of the program. Keyboard shortcuts do not work, even though they are shown in the Keyboard Map. There is NO WAY to get any support from Corel unless you are willing to purchase a support contract. So unless you are willing to use a program that may or may not work, and be unable to get any support for the program when it is defective, I would suggest you purchase another program.

This is the only negative review I have ever written, but I felt it was important that before others buy from Corel that you understand that you will get NO technical support at all. My PC crashed and I had to rebuild it with a new disk drive. Every other app loaded fine, except PaintShop - It claimed my license key was not unique. Corel makes getting ahold of support very difficult and then basically provide no assistance. You would think the company in second place would realize that they shouldn't alienate customers.

Summary

I paid good money for an application that I cannot use. Corel refuses to help. Adobe here I come.

It costs less than Photoshop Elements, but then again, it isn't near as good either. I now have both!

Cons

Corel Paint Shop Pro X6 Ultimate software comes without any book - just a sheet offering the ability to download a "free user guide". That turned out to be a 220 page document, and since I like to read and refer to a hard-copy manual, I ended up having to print the blasted thing out. Fortunately, my printer supports a booklet mode so I could print the thing, 2 pages on each side of a sheet so I ONLY had to print 110 pages; i.e., 55 pieces of letter paper printed on both sides. Probably cost me $20+ to print something they could have done for $1-$2! Penny wise; pound foolish. I should have known, from the weight of the box, there was no manual in it, but didn't think, and once you've opened software, your stuck with it! Bad on ya, Corel! BAD!

Summary

COREL used to be a quality outfit, with good, complete, reliable products. In my opinion, they are becoming a penny-wise - dollar-dumb outfit that cuts too many corners. X6 is reputed to be good; let's see if that opinion holds up. We're probably the testing crew, us users who paid good (but admittedly not a lot of) money for their product. Time will tell.

The latest version of Paintshop Pro (Version 6) is a vast improvement on previous versions of this program. It loads much faster. It's RAW file editor is quantum leap better then in previous versions of this program.It's new selection tools are interesting and easy to use.You can upload image files directly to Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo's Flickr.It comes with the latest version of Face Filter Studio and Hallmark Card Studio.

Cons

The new selection tools seem to automatically grab more area then they should. However, that area can be edited by the older standard tools.

Summary

This new version is superior to any previous version of this program. It's Raw editor is among the best editors for RAW files that I have used.

It comes with the latest version of Face Filter Studio (Version 3) and Hallmark Card Studio. Face Filter Studio is great for portraits.

Corel Paint Shop Pro X6 Ultimate software comes without any book - just a sheet offering the ability to download a "free user guide". That turned out to be a 220 page document, and since I like to read and refer to a hard-copy manual, I ended up having to print the blasted thing out. Fortunately, my printer supports a booklet mode so I could print the thing, 2 pages on each side of a sheet so I ONLY had to print 110 pages; i.e., 55 pieces of letter paper printed on both sides. Probably cost me $20+ to print something they could have done for $1-$2! Penny wise; pound foolish. I should have known, from the weight of the box, there was no manual in it, but didn't think, and once you've opened software, your stuck with it! Bad on ya, Corel! BAD!

Scanning images crashes the program. There's a 50-50 chance of cropping an image that was just scanned. I've just now spent at least the past 30 mins. scanning pages for school, and only got 7/10. It would've been faster taking pictures.

Very good at what it is supposed to do, and for the money the best photo editor available. No issues at all with Win 7/32. Will try on Win 7/64 shortly, but X4 runs well on Win 7/64/I7. Logical GUI which I understand, and I like the layout. I do not find it particularly crowded, and just because Adobe has made changes is no reason for Corel to make changes. Imports and handles raw from common cameras well, and other than difficulties importing Photoshop brushes I have had no difficulties at all. I perceive no differences comparing to CS%. Seems to have improved ability to handle larger files than earlier versions. Plenty of good tools. I like the one step photo fix, although it is not perfect.

Cons

Should have focused more on increasing the power of the program over adding questionable features and not particularly useful companion programs. Facefilter, for instance, gives an unnatural distortion and only works on jpg files, so that big Tif portrait you better do yourself. Improved, but does not take too much to get an out of memory error. Not really 64 bit. A bit slow sometimes compared to Adobe, but can live with it. Still no Adobe color support, but converts and does not seem to affect finished product. The "improved" Photoshop brush import tool has not worked for me. I have difficulty understanding how set up custom brushes, that is I don't understand how to do the steps equivalent to Photoshop's presets, although I know they exist because the supplied brushes work o.k. Like others, I would like to see the innate power increased, and I would like to see it work a little smoother sometimes. I wish there were some standard photos like Corel used to furnish with Draw.

Summary

A fine program especially for the money. Sort of well above average but still plenty of room for improvement. If you don't need the esoteric power features of the many times more expensive Adobe products this one can't be beat. On the other hand, still clunky with larger files. Some features are better than what is in the other products.

Yes, still playing catch up.

Frankly, if you have X4 I would advise waiting until maybe they have a native 64 bit available. I have not used the face recognition yet.

Too bad there are so many vile comments about it. For me it just installs and runs. Yes, there are times when I prefer the other program. The magic wand is not quite as selective, for instance, and I like the brush tools in Adobe better.

But this is still a really good program and if you are buying new I suggest that you go for it. It is inexpensive enough to be expendable, so if you really want to go deeper you will not have wasted much, and if it suits your needs, and it likely will, great.

We were given a review of Corel Paintshop Photo Pro X3 and promised a trial download of Corel Paintshop Photo Pro X3 but were actually given a trial download of Corel Paintshop Pro X5 (note absence of the word "Photo" as well as different X number.I think these are different products, X5 being more advanced. It hasn't helped to give me a preview of the X3 version which I am planning to buy.

The only pro I can think of is their money back guarantee, that way when they can't get it running on your machine, you're not out anything but wasted time.

Cons

Well, the biggest con is that it doesn't work, and after that, the lack of knowledgeable support

Summary

What can I say, I purchased it after trying the trial version. The second I bought the key and registered, it quit working, froze up as soon as I tried to do anything at all, even open a file, tach support tried to have me install updates that there were already installed and of course ultimately hinted that the problem was my system, which of course runs Photoshop and Premier without a hitch.

I used to use this program back in the 90's and early 2000, very disappointing to see what they degraded too.

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